Bob has asked me to post this for him, because he keeps getting error message, even over here. I must admit, I get an error message too, so I am going to try a different approach. That is why you see this additional writing and a different title. His title that he chose is, ‘Denial of Service Attacks on Flight 93 Sites‘. He believes it is important for everyone to know that we are having an effect, as do I, because someone has flagged his blogger account and had it shut down. Below please find what he has written. His will be in italics.

At 10:33 PM last night, I received an email from Boston Maggie, saying that her blogspot site had been locked due to a spam report. She had posted some things about Jawn eF’n sKerry, (who served in Viet Nam, BTW) and she assumed it had upset some Taxachusetts liberals, who responded by hitting the “Flag This Site” button. At 10:34 PM I received an email from Blogger telling me that MY blogspot site had been locked for the same reason. Someone had hit the “Flag This Site” button on my site as well.

I would just like to add that I find this childish and disgusting. If they don’t like free speech, go back to Saudi Arabia! hehehe. Oh, I’m also writing this in the hopes that the computer will notice this is not the same post as the one I received an error message. heh.

Text of email from blogger:

Your blog at: DCProtestWarrior has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out this form.

Your blog will be deleted within 20 days if it isn’t reviewed, and you’ll be unable to publish posts during this time. After we receive your request, we’ll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. If this blog doesn’t belong to you, you don’t have to do anything, and any other blogs you may have won’t be affected.

I am interrupting this email just in case this is the problem. Does anyone know what an 404 is?

We find spam by using an automated classifier.

This, in fact, is not true. Blogger contacted these two people due to someone flagging their site. Remember?

Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly.

It most certainly was!

We sincerely apologize for this error.

Oh really? Who is that on your donation list? For whom are you voting?

By using this kind of system, however, we can dedicate more storage, bandwidth, and engineering resources to bloggers like you instead of to spammers.

This is a load of crap, because you told me you couldn’t block pornographers from my site! Hypocrites. I complain and there’s nothing you can do. Someone else complains once, and you shut everything down? How dare you!

For more information, please see Blogger Help.

Thank you for your understanding and for your help with our spam-fighting efforts.

Sincerely,

The Blogger Team

After a few email exchanges with people OUTSIDE the blogspot community, we came to the conclusion that someone was targeting sites with one similar theme:

I have followed the instructions contained in the email from blogger, as has Maggie. We will keep you updated on the progress. I feel certain that the issue will be resolved in our favor.
I have also emailed blogger support and informed them of my suspicions.

Please supply any technical help you may know of that I don’t, which would not be that hard. lol. Thank you for helping ConcreteBob and BostonMaggie. Have a good night.

I did happen to notice a code I am unfamiliar with: _mce. What does this do? It may the cause of our 404 error message. Some computer programs use codes that no other program will allow. Hmm. Should I try this again now that I’ve found some codes and deleted them? Hmm…

PS. How ironic. Blogger is the one doing the banning, and blogger is the only one that would allow me to post this so far! My head is spinning. lol.

Cross-posted @ Rosemary’s News and Ideas.

Why do I declare one this way and the other one in a better light? Read this article. Someone made time for our wounded troops. There was no entourage. A few reporters, but no front-page headlines. No. This MOI al-Bolani came to America to see our wounded and to thank them for freeing his country from that tyrant, Saddam Hussein. Can you imagine that?! HEY! NY TIMES! THEY’RE THANKING THE SOLDIERS! Not you, though, huh? I wonder why…

Source(s): Blackfive.net and Mudville Gazette.

Cross-posted @ Talon and Rosemary’s News and Ideas.

In yet another example of why the west might not beat the onslaught of radical Islamofascism, Minette Marrin of the Timesonline thinks she has found a solution to the clash of cultures. Marrin details the extremism evinced by too many Muslims in England and then posits a solution: ban all religion. Talk about an absurd idea. It’s as foolish as throwing out the baby with the bath water. It also discounts thousands of years of worthy and enlightened western culture influenced, guided and based on Christian philosophy.

In To beat extremism we must dissolve religious groups, Marrin’s wooly headed prescription also serves as a fine example of the most shallow of PC, postmodern “thinking.” Famed French mathematician Jules Henri Poincaré once said that, “to doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.” It is a lesson in discernment and critical thinking that escapes most on the left, and specifically this prosaic, anti-intellectual Timesonline columnist.

The first half of Marrin’s piece details recent poll results revealing the extremist leaning of Muslim students in England and it is alarming information, indeed. These poll results show, for instance, that four out of ten Muslim students in Britain support Sharia law in the UK. One third said that killing in the name of religion was justified. It shows that a quarter think women are not equals to men. The poll also shows that, among other results, 57% believe Muslim soldiers in the British army should be allowed to opt out of the war on terror. This alarming YouGov poll will be released on Monday, July 28. To sum up, Marrin says of the poll:

The authors make it clear that the majority of Muslim students support secularism and democratic values and are broadly tolerant of others. However, the CSC points out that the incidence of conservative and separatist Muslim beliefs has been growing and is more prevalent in young Muslims than in their parents’ generation. British Muslims used to be much more moderate.

It is an alarming poll. Of course, who can doubt such results? The Brits have for decades been collectively turning their back on western society with politically correct teaching that holds that their own culture is no more than just another culture and, therefore, not deserving of special consideration. Like most left leaning provocateurs, British liberals have become fond of morally equating their own culture with the worst lot of humanity. On the other hand, these young Muslims are taught from birth that their religion is superior. Not only that, but Islam is a political system as well as a mere religion. So why shouldn’t British Muslims seek to replace the British culture with one they are taught is superior? If the English aren’t going to insist their culture is optimal, why should anyone else?

In all this England is reaping what it has sown. Also in this they aren’t much different than the French, the Germans, Spain, Canada, and to a lesser extent, even the U.S.A.

It is enlightening information and serves as a good warning, but Marrin isn’t done. She wonders aloud what we should do. “Insecure young people can be swayed by extremists,” she assures us, “The question is how to stand up to the extremists.”

Marrin begins with a good idea saying, “First, I think, we should abandon all discussions of what Islam truly is.” That is a pretty good prescription, but it isn’t a subject of much discussion in the west, really. Westerners aren’t interested in what is or is not the “real” Islam. That is a question that has vexed the Muslim world from time immemorial and will surely never be resolved. What the west is interested in, though, is what Islam is not, and that is a “religion of peace.” Still, no matter what it is, it is a major problem and solving that problem is all the west is interested in. Muslims living in peace is not something the west is interested in meddling with. Muslims on the rampage is.

And now we get to Marrin’s solution of banning all religion, her nihilistic suggestion.

What follows inescapably from this is that religious people and their views should not be officially recognised in groups. Religion should not be allowed a public space or public representation. This is hard for those of us who used to love the muddled Anglican compromise; it means the disestablishment of our national church – if it doesn’t self-destruct first.

She goes further.

The challenge of other, fiercer and more divisive convictions has forced the issue; multiculturalism has been subversive. There must be no more religious schools – personally I would leave those that exist alone. There must be no public recognition of religious associations as representatives of anything or anybody: not on campuses, not in student unions, not in government consultations or in parliament.

Marrin even wishes to ban religious schools? And how does this make her much different in stringent authoritarianism than the radical Islamists she here condemns?

Now Marrin’s absurd, overreaction would make sense if there were even half as many honor killings in Britain perpetrated by Christians, Buddhists — or even Druids for that matter — as there are Muslims. It would make sense if Christian nations were exporting terror cells secretly into nations throughout the world. It would make sense if major Christian leaders were issuing their own fatwa-like proclamations calling their flocks to violence, oppression, and self-immolation.

It would be a perfectly sensible idea to ban all religions if all religions were exactly as dangerous as Islam. But they aren’t. In fact, it isn’t even close. Islam is by many magnitudes of measurement a far more dangerous ideology than any other religion on the planet.

Yet, in a reductionists silly fantasy, Marrin offhandedly decides to veer off track and rush to ban all religions instead of making even a tiny attempt to actually deal with the real problem. This is the same sort of empty headed thinking that would punish the bully and his schoolyard victim for fighting on the playground. Hers is the same sort of idiocy that reduces all human actions to moral relativity. Marrin’s ultimate destination for her vacuous reasoning would equate the works of a Gandhi or a King, Jr., to that of a Stalin or Hitler. After all, all of them espoused their philosophies loudly and insistently and brought many followers to their side.

Certainly, a banning of Islam is not perhaps a solution out of the question. After all, Islam is the problem, here. But a foolhardy banning of all religion just because one is currently a problem is no solution at all. But it is a “solution” that falls into Poincaré’s admonition. It has the dubious benefit of eliminating any reflection. Sadly, it is the way of the unthinking left that we’ve become so tiresomely familiar.

And now, as an International man of mystery, I find that the famed German magazine Der Spiegel has quoted me making fun of one of their competitors, Bild newspaper.

In my July 25th piece on the “gushingly immature” Bild newspaper reporter that had a workout with Barack Obama, I lambasted the German daily for acting like a “rock-star struck teeny bopper” instead of a serious, adult reporter.

Well, now Der Spiegel, one of the largest selling German language magazines in the world, ran a story today reporting that Barack Obama is claiming he was “hustled” by the Bild reporter. In the Spiegel report, my July 25th piece is quoted and I am referenced by name.

The translated Bild report was rapidly picked up by US blogs, where it became the subject of endless derision.

Blogger Warner Todd Huston wrote: “Apparently, Bild, a newspaper in Germany, hires 14-year-old, starry-eyed, fan-girls as reporters instead of serious grown-ups. Or, at least one would be excused in thinking this reporter was a rock-star struck teeny bopper upon reading her gushingly immature account of having an exercise workout with Barack Obama on the German leg of his trip.”

Bonesky is actually 27. “Let’s enjoy her sexytime memories, together,” the Washington blog Wonkette said, recalling the encounter in a wooden translation of the Bild report that evokes fictional reporter Borat in his comedy “Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”

So, me and the Wonkette are heard ’round the world.

This blogging stuff is so much fun!

Now here is an interesting little story that doesn’t seem to be getting any media coverage. In South Dakota after being held up in courts since 2005, a new law finally took effect on July 21 requiring any abortion doctor to read a statement covering the possible ill effects that abortions have on women — both mental and physical — at least two hours before the procedure occurs. The one Planned Parenthood office in South Dakota had taken the state to court to stop this law being implemented, but lost their case on the 18th. On the day the law was to take effect, though, the Planned Parenthood office did not open its doors for “business,” refusing to abide by the new laws. Doesn’t this refusal to operate tend to confirm that Planned Parenthood is in the game for ideological reasons as opposed to being only interested in women’s health?

This is a big defeat for Planned Parenthood, and a great victory for anti-abortion supporters yet the media is silent on the issue. That seems rather curious.

The new notification law requires a doctor to read a prepared script filled with the sort of info that PP tries desperately to exclude in their normal day-to-day operations. The Washington Post had a story about the new law on July 20.

Under the law, doctors must say that the woman has “an existing relationship” with the fetus that is protected by the U.S. Constitution and that “her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated.” Also, the doctor is required to say that “abortion increases the risk of suicide ideation and suicide.”

More specifically, the law requires the physician to tell the patient the following information:

• The abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;
• The pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being and that the relationship enjoys protection under the United States Constitution and under the laws of South Dakota;
• That by having an abortion, her existing relationship and her existing constitutional rights with regards to that relationship will be terminated;
• A description of all known medical risks of the procedure including depression and related psychological stress and increased risk of suicide

Naturally, PP is ginning up their highest dudgeon claiming that this simple act of reading some scripted information will be a “terrible, terrible barrier” to women seeking abortion.

“The law is one more terrible, terrible barrier,” said Sarah Stoesz, president of the regional Planned Parenthood office. She described the rules as “unprecedented interference in the doctor-patient relationship and unprecedented interference in a woman’s life.”

Of course, it seems like an untenable position that PP is arguing. Why are they against a few words on a piece of paper? Why is it such an affront to their idea of “health care” to be sure and give their patients accurate information with which to make an informed decision?

Obviously what PP is objecting to is that they won’t have free reign to disseminate their own ideologically skewed information to patients and this is why they’ve closed their office in South Dakota. How such a small gesture of reading a list of information to a patient could be such an impediment to proper health care is anyone’s guess.

To even a casual viewer, it would seem to be big news in the abortion fight that Planned Parenthood has decided to quit their work to avoid obeying these common sense laws, but so far only a few sources on the Internet are reporting this story. Worldnetdaily.com, of course, has the story, LifeNews.com has it, and a few blogs posted entries as well. But, no major news outlets have yet to touch the tale.

Curious, eh?

(Photo credit: Foxnews.com)

We have been reporting a bit on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN) this week on the Union Label Blog and ACORN is an organization that bears close watch. It was reported that ACORN made $2.9 million from organized labor last year and a lot of this money seems to be slipping past Federal regulators raising significant questions of ACORN ties to big labor.

This money paid to ACORN supposedly covered the expenses for a number of shadowy union activities.

• Training organizers to devise and implement anti-corporate campaigns
• Providing “strike support”
• Conducting campaign research and providing staffing
• “Protecting market share”

Some of these services ware also paid on retainer and not just after services rendered.

ACORN has developed very close ties to the labor movement becoming a sort of “one-stop shop for unions looking to contract out labor activities,” according to Maverick Strategies. ACORN’s efforts have thus far flown under the radar for Federal regulatory agencies that act as watchdogs and regulators over union activities.

ACORN has, for instance, worked closely with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Most notably ACORN served to train SEIU staffers in the anti-Wal-Mart efforts the SIEU launched in the last few years.

Some of ACORN’s recent activities are as follows:

• SEIU paid ACORN founder and chief of anti-Wal-Mart strategies Wade Rathke $21,885 in salary and $5,233 in expenses for the role of “campaign project organizer.”
• SEIU gave $50,000 contribution to “Walmart Associations” in the care of Wade Rathke
• SEIU paid a $126,000 “subsidy” to Wal-Mart Alliance for Reform Now, operated by ACORN
• Change to Win paid ACORN $30,000 for a “public awareness campaign.”
• SEIU twice awarded ACORN a $40,000 “monthly retainer.”
• SEIU paid more than $970,000 to ACORN’s ACLOC program for “training.”
• SEIU Local 5 paid ACLOC $58,487 for an internship phase and for an “organizing partnership.”
• UFCW hired ACLOC as a “consultant for organizing program” at a cost of $429,431
• UFCW Local 876 paid $131,089 for a “community standards program.”

ACORN is also on record as providing direct staffing for various labor union efforts and programs as opposed to mere training and consultancy work, as well.

This close relationship raises questions as to whether ACORN should fall under Federal regulations as a labor organization.

What’s interesting about Huckabee’s books is that Huckabee doesn’t use ghost writers. Unlike most politicians, he actually can write his own stuff. So from TV ads to books to articles, what you read for better or for worse is by Mike Huckabee.

As in his weight loss book, Huckabee has created a 12 Stop Program (not Step, but Stop.) In this case, there are 12 things the country needs to Stop Doing according to regain national greatness according to Huckabee.

The first Stop is challenging. “Stop Being Cynical”

Do I have to? I’m a blogger, I thought it was in the job description.

Of course, Huckabee explains that this doesn’t mean you have to blindly believe everything, Skepticism is necessary.

The cynic, on the other hand according to Huckabee, “goes beyond merely asking questions and seeking facts, and begins from the premise that authority figures–whether they be politicains, corporate CEOs, religious leaders, or sports or entertainment celebrities–have ulterior motives for everything they do. ”

Huckabee goes on to make his case that hope and optomism are preferable and needed and talks of his own struggles through a childhood barely making and an early adulthood marked by tragedy when his wife was diagnosed with spinal cancer when he was only 20. America is a remarkable country that holds a world of opportunity for its people.

Of course, some thoughts occur to me. Firstly, Huckabee’s campaign was done in by cynicism. It was not people’s eyes but their cynicism that led them to believe a bookshelf with a glare on it was a “Floating Cross.” For most things, Huckabee did in this campaign that were mistakes or highlighted, it wasn’t what he did that caused him problems, it was how it was interpreted. It was cynicism that led me to conclude that Huckabee had spent 13 months of his life running for President so that he could claim Dan Quayle’s old job.

Of course, the politician class breeds this cynicism. There’s an old joke (I guess it must have been a cynic that wrote it) that 99% of politicians ruin it for the good ones. Over the past 20 years, we’ve been treated to some disappointing whoppers from at least two President Bushes, as well as Congressmen who promised to change Washington, but Washington changed them.

1988: George H.W. Bush: “Read, my lips, no new taxes.”

2004: George W. Bush promises Social Security Reform and Tax Reform (which we’ve seen little of.) He campaigned on a marriage Amendment, but then as soon as he was re-elected, he shelves the idea with no intention of bringing it up.  He brought it up  2006, with Republicans trailing  in the polls for the Fall election, hoping to excite religious conservatives.

Conservatives have gotten to the point where we’re waiting for our party leaders to smack us down, sell us out, and betray us. Many have the simple goal of electing leaders who won’t hurt them—too much. They dare not dream of a more positive outcome.

Maybe, we need to be less cynical, though I think I’m going to always be quite skeptical when there’s cause for it. Anyway, Huckabee has some interesting advise to Stop Being Cynical. Some of the more interesting points:

2) Read the Bible more; blog less.

Yeah, I think we can all afford to do that.

4) Listen to more music and less talk radio.

Now we know why all those talk radio hosts were against Huckabee. He was going to put them out of jobs.  Or perhaps, I’m just being cynical.

In all seriousness, while I enjoy some Talk Radio, too much (and too much of the wrong host can be a bad thing.) I found that I was always coming home especially grumpy from work, and ended up having issues with my wife. The problem was resolved when I stopped listening to the Savage Nation and turned on Solid Gospel radio.

By the way, I’m fairly sure my show is okay whenever.

5) Watch Classic films made before 1968.

Not certain why that’s the year, but the classics are always good. Some Abbott and Costello mixed in with Harpo Marx helps lift your spirits.

12) Watch TV Land and Nick @ Nite more; network TV less.

So, Nick@Nite.  Cynical conservatives will rush to Fec.Gov to see if Viacom contributed to the campaign and will be disappointed to find that they didn’t.

Of course, Huckabee has several other reccomendations and you read them in his book, “From Hope to Higher Ground.”

Ask yourself, “why would she lie?” And then ask yourself why would he lie. Which is more likely? More in character? Sixteen years after the Senate gave Clarence Thomas the ultimate affirmative action, with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, he’s still trying to win the argument, now as he flogs his newly-published memoir.

So apparently, if we can’t come up with a reasonable motivation for Ms. Hill to lie than we are to presume. After all, it’s guilt until presumed innocence for all conservatives.  Of course, you can if you think for a moment, you realize there’s an idealogical motivation given Ms. Hill’s subsequent work in the academically dubious field of women’s studies and other feminist leaning stuff, maybe Hill had romantic interests that were dashed by Thomas’ marriage. Certainly, her decision to follow him to the Department of Education remains a stunning issue for her credability. That she had also accused someone else of the same offense creates reasonsable doubt to her credability.

I also find it ironic that Tom feels free to call appointing Clarence Thomas merely “affirmative action.” Rush Limbaugh caught all heck for suggesting that Eagle’s Quarterback Donovan McNabb’s race had something to do with media coverage, yet I fully expect our easy-to-outrage liberals to simply yawn at this statement and pay it no mind even as Tom suggests that the entire life and accomplishments of Clarence Thomas are due to the color of his skin and little more.

LaShawn Barber:

OK. The speech is over. I’m bitterly disappointed with him for vague and empty platitudes about illegal immigration. He didn’t address the social costs of the illegal scourge, nor did he mention anything about the incident that happened at the border this week, nor offer anything concrete to his pro-enforcement base.

Captain’s Quarters

A strong finish to one of Bush’s better speeches. This speech seemed to emphasize a particular theme, of moving forward to engage the world rather than waiting for the world to engage us. That theme ran across all of his subjects, from terrorism to the economy to energy reform. He reminded people of the missionary concept of American exceptionalism, a Wilsonian note for a man who six years ago seemed to hew more towards his father on foreign policy.

Instapundit

SHORT REVIEW: Better than I expected, though that’s a function of my low expectations. State of the Union speeches are generally weak, and Bush is no star as a speaker. But the delivery was, for Bush, good, and the substance was mostly good, too, though the cloning-ban stuff didn’t thrill me. The Presidential Commission on entitlement reform was also very lame, though realistically it’s probably all he can do.

Conservative Blogger:

POTUS typically doesn’t get big points for style and delivery, partly because he’s just not an orator. I thought he did a great job with the speech tonight. There wasn’t a lot new in the speech, although the networks are saying it was confrontational.

Stop the ACLU;

Awesome stuff. I don’t think I’ll ever try to live blog again…that was very difficult.

Blogs for Bush:

Great speech ending. Great speech in all. About 50 minutes.

Weapons of Mass Discussion:

Gut reaction? Eh…not his best speech but a fairly good performance.

State of the Union

Paging John Syles argues that threatening to expose a Senator as a homosexual if he doesn’t vote against the Alito nomination isn’t blackmail:

Evidently they’re not lawyers. Blackmail is “obtaining money or property by threat of exposure to embarrassing, damaging information.”

By subverting the process, I assume they mean trying to affect the votes of legislators, which lobbyists have been doing for ages. What’s the difference here?

Reldim, A poster at RedState actually pulled up the DC Statute on this:

“(a) A person commits the offense of blackmail, if, with intent to obtain property of another or to cause another to do or refrain from doing any act, that person threatens:

(1) To accuse any person of a crime;

(2) To expose a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule; or

(3) To impair the reputation of any person, including a deceased person.

Clear enough?

—–

Courtesy of Captain’s Quarters, I found this blog which tried to desperately rally the Filibuster which was crushed by a 72-25 margin.

They celebrated some good news:

Four up, one down, one big fracking sissy: Republican Senator John Ensign in car accident, unable to attend cloture vote — that’s effectively one more for our side!

UPDATE: The author of the Post, posted below that the Big Fracking Sissy comment referred to Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Cn.) not the injured Senator Ensign. However, the Sentence Construction shown above is exactly as it was written on the blog, so it appears that they may need to work on communicating clearly.

Wow, that’s the Democrat’s key plan for victory. Make sure enough Republicnas in car wrecks and then celebrating afterwards.

The author of the blog understood that 61 votes were required to stop a Filibuster. So, they just preferred Democrats not show up for the vote, instead they had an alternate plan:

SECOND, call the “URGE ABSTENTION” Senators identified immediately below and do the same — say that you hope they vote NO on cloture this afternoon but if they can’t, urge them to ABSTAIN from the cloture vote by doing something good that most Republicans would never do, like visiting wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Hospital instead.

Yeah, show up at Walter Reed and say to a soldier, “Hello, son, I’m here to visit you to avoid taking political flack back home.”

The grateful soldiers will then curse the Senators out. Indeed, using our injured soldiers as props is an awful tactic, particularly when its meant to avoid going on the record. To use a Military Term, the author is basically suggesting these Senators Section 8 themselves out of the vote. Again, I’d suggest a Section 8 would be appropriate for anyone listening to this advice.

However, this is minor league stuff compared to what Michael Rogers is up to at Blog Active(warning: Not for Children) in which he tries to blackmail a Republican Senator in a post to the Senator (Hat Tip: Red State), Rogers write:

Tomorrow you will be faced with a vote that may have the longest aftereffects of any other you have cast in your Senate career.

Tomorrow you will decide if your political position is worth more than doing what is right for others like you. For others like you, Mr. Senator, who engage in oral sex with other men. (Although, Mr. Senator, most of us don’t do in the bathrooms of Union Station!) Your fake marriage, by the way, will NOT protect you from the truth being told on this blog.

How does this blog decide who to report on? It’s simple. We report on hypocrites. In this case, hypocrites who vote against the gay and lesbian community while engaging in gay sex themselves*.

When you cast that vote, Mr. Senator, represent your own…it’s the least you could do.

Ladies and gentlemen, this person is trying to subvert the Senate of the United States. What’s being attempted is the corruption of our government at the highest levels. The threat strikes at the very heart of our republican institutions of government.

Indeed, the left calls Republicans mean-spirited, what do you call this? The attempts to unleash the politics of personal destruction on a member of the United States Senate for failing to fall lock, stock, and barrel with the radical homosexual agenda.

Subversion, blackmail, and deceit is all that’s left to the unhinged left.

As seen on Myopic Zeal and Wonkette, Paging John Sayles, Florida Masochist, National Journal’s Blogometer

Linked to:

Basil’s Blog, Jo’s Cafe, Don Surber,

For more than 30 years, the Republican Party has put up with the liberal shenanigans of the Chaffee family, more in tune with the Democratic Party than the Republican. However, in recent years, Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) has taken this disloyalty too far.

In the year 2004, Chafee failed to support the re-election of George W. Bush as President of the United States, instead opting to write-in the President’s father. Chafee has joined the Michael Moore wing of the Democratic Party in attacking our War effort. Now, Chafee has joined the Democratic Caucus in voting to reject the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Enough is enough.

Thankfully, in this time of fiscal irresponsibility, Rhode Island has a candidate for the US Senate, a man of principle dedicated to reforming our out of control pork-barrel politics, a man who would support the confirmation of Judges like Samuel Alito.

Mayor Steve Laffey knows what fiscal restraint all about. The Mayor helped save the town of Cranston, Rhode Island from bankruptcy. If elected to the Senate, Mayor Laffey will be part of the solution to our nation’s ills and will fight the out of control fleecing of America’s taxpayers.

Despite his qualifications, his conviction, and his dedication to bedrock Conservative principles, some of my Republican brethren will be afraid to support Laffey for fear of losing the general election.

First, the State has in recent years elected a pro-life Conservative Republican Governor, so the Mayor has a fair shot at victory.

Second, I remember the Republican Party standing behind another incumbent 6 years ago, providing him campaign funding and support as well as the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Labor Committee despite numerous betrayals of Republican values.

That Senator was Jim Jeffords (later to be known as Jumpin’ Jim.) Chafee constantly flirts with switching parties. He may make the switch someday, but when he does, lets make sure he’s not a United States Senator.

I urge all Rhode Island Conservatives to unite behind the election of Steve Laffey to the US Senate. Its time to elect a Real Republican, a man who understands and believes in our party’s great values.

http://www.electlaffey.com

Others Blogging on this:

Save the GOP, Indepednent Conservative, The Keeler Report, The Political Pitbull, Irish Pennants, GOP Bloggers

Chafee, Laffey

Boycotts have been all the rage. Many websites call for boycotting Walmart, Amazon.com, and others as punishment for various sins. So pervasive is the boycott mentality that if everyone followed all the demands for boycotts out there, you’d be able to buy nothing from a national chain.

The sad part is that all this boycotting does little good. A lot of energy is spent on colossal boycott campaigns that in the end achieve nothing, other than making the advocates of the boycott look ineffective or at worse petty.

This isn’t to say that people can’t choose to not go to a store they don’t like, but if you’re going to make a federal issue of it, you have to follow some rules.

Rules for Boycotts

1) Have a Good Reason

A boycott must have a good reason behind it, more importantly, it must be something that would get people up in arms enough to inconvenience themselves over it.

Reasons that don’t work would include things like “XYZ company gave $X to support…” Corporate appropriations don’t excite people. In fact, every Corporation supports controversial causes, due to the nature of the people who populate our nation’s board rooms. Another reason not to boycott is internal policies like Domestic Partner benefits. Those are not only unlikely to change, but really are hard to get excited about.

I think that a recent successful example is the boycott of NBC and Burlington Coat Factory (the network and prime sponsor respectively of “The Book of Daniel.”) The show’s blasphemous content served to galvanize social conservatives around a boycott.

If the reason doesn’t play well, then people aren’t going to become involved or they’ll lose focus and the boycott will go bust. Consider the 1990s boycott of Disney that had no impact on the international entertainment monolith.

2) Choose a Good Target

Whoever you boycott should be vulnerable to the use of the boycott. NBC, as an old media company who was already losing money on “The Book of Daniel” is a prime example. Trying to boycott everything from China is utterly ineffective.

3) Set a Goal and Make Sure the Boycott Will Accomplish It

What do you want to happen from the boycott? Set an achievable goal and make your focus accomplishing it. The goal of getting a show cancelled was easy enough with NBC. Walmart faced a boycott from the Catholic League because a search for the word “Christmas” brought up a “Holiday page” while Kwanzaa and Hanukkah brought up specific items immediately. The boycott ended quickly and painlessly when Walmart changed its website. Also during the Christmas, several stores added “Merry Christmas” to their ads and renamed “Holiday Trees” to “Christmas Trees” to avoid the public relations problem.

Of course, the goal can sometimes be punishment for its own sake. A few hundred million lost in revenue and a drop in a Stock Price can sometimes send a shockwave through boardrooms that outraged letters don’t.

However, boycotting Walmart or another business because of labor or immigration law violations misses the point. If laws are being violated, pressure needs to be brought to bear on government officials who’ve sworn to uphold the law and aren’t.

4) Think of the Boycotters

In calling for a boycott, real human needs must be considered. For example, calling for a boycott of the only hospital for a hundred miles around because it performs abortions would be foolish as most people really have no choice where they go in an Emergency.

If you want people to join a boycott, particularly one where the goal is hurting the company in its wallet book, you have to consider the people you’re asking to join the boycott. If they’re in a town where Walgreens is the only place some things they need can be bought, asking them to boycott the store forever is unreasonable. This why many boycotts lose steam over time.

To avoid this, set a limited boycott for a set period of time. While webmasters who depend on Google for a supplemental income or even as their full-time income won’t be able to dump Adsense forever, what about a one week boycott?

If realistic goals are set, and the needs of people are considered, we’ll have a lot less boycotts and more of them will be successful.

Boycott, Google, Wal-Mart

Trackbacked to Third World County

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So far, no Republican has broken ranks to oppose Alito and Senators Byrd, Johnson, and Nelson (D-Ne.) have broken ranks to vote for the nomination. The Democrats are taking this calmly, just listen to this one left wing blogger:

tim johnson (d-ne), robert byrd (d-wv) and ben nelson (d-ne) are all dead to me for voting for the nomination of samuel alito.

Wow! I just stepped into a mob movie.

Anyway, seriously, California Yankee has 15 undecied votes: 4 Republicans and 11 Democrats:

Republicans
Olympia Snowe*
Susan Collins
Lincoln Chaffee*
Ted Stevens

Democrats
Evan Bayh
Maria Cantwell*
Kent Conrad*
Mark Dayton*
Byron Dorgan
Mary Landrieu
Frank Lautenberg
Robert Menendez*
Jay Rockefeller
Paul Sarbanes*
Mark Pryor

So, lets count votes.

Among the Republicans, I strongly doubt that Stevens will vote Nay, and I’m almost certain he’s not going to vote for a filibuster. I’ll put him comfortably in the “Yes” column. When the leadership needs something, Stevens is generally reliable to come up for it. Even voted for the Balanced Budget Amendment, saying it was a bad idea whose time is come.

Snowe and Collins are harder to peg down. I could see them opposing this because of being from Maine. Snowe, however is up for re-election this year. In the end, I think they’ll both vote yes, though I’m not 100% on that, more like 60% sure. I’m close to 100% certain Olympia Snowe won’t back a Filibuster of Alito. In signing up with John Kerry for a Fillibuster, she could very well get Conservatives ticked off enough to vote Democrat or Third Party and throw her election into doubt. I also think if Snowe votes for Cloture, Collins will go along with her, because she’s slightly to the right of Snowe.

As for Chaffee, The Fix explains the precarious position in which Chaffee finds himself:

With the confirmation vote on Samuel A. Alito Jr. nearing, Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R) faces a Hobson’s choice that could dramatically affect his reelection campaign this November.

GOP Sen. Chafee is being challenged on the left and the right. (AP Photo)Chafee remains the most high-profile undecided senator on Alito, and regardless of which side he eventually chooses, he can expect to be bashed for it.

Chafee faces a primary challenge from Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey (R). Should he get through that race, he will face off against either former state Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse (D) or Secretary of State Matt Brown (D) in a state that went for the Democratic presidential candidate by 20 points in 2004.

A Chafee vote for Alito will make for considerable fodder for either Brown or Whitehouse. But a vote against Alito could give Laffey the GOP nomination.

Now, the obvious political decision would be for Chaffee to vote Present on Alito and Oppose the Filibuster. However, the Chaffee’s tend to really be just New England Liberals, donkeys who think they’re elephants. I could see Chaffee voting “Nay” and helping John Kerry filibuster. He’ll be lionized by the left and booted by Laffey in the primary.

Minimal Prediction from Undecided Republicans: 1 Yea on Confirmation, 3 Yeas on Cloture
Actual Prediction: 3 Yeas on Confirmation, 3 Yeas for Cloture

Minimally: 55 Yea Votes on Confirmation, 57 Yea Votes on Cloture
Actual Prediction: 57 Yea on Confirmation, 57 Yea on Cloture

So, as we move to the Democrats, you just need 3 of the 10 to vote for Cloture:

Lets start with the obvious suspects. Dayton and Sarbanes both voted against John Roberts, so they’ll vote against Alito. Sarbanes is one “undecided” Senator I’m 100% sure I’m about. Dayton, there’s a little doubt because Minnesota was so close in the President. I think he’ll vote for Cloture, but against the nomination. Cantwell also voted against Roberts, so I expect a Nay Vote on Alito, but with she’ll feel free to oppose Cloture on a first vote, but if it went further than one vote, she’d be forced to reconsider if there was backlash.

Menendez and Lautenberg I expect to put home state loyalties aside and vote Nay on Alito. Menendez isn’t scared of being seen as extremeists as Republicans haven’t won a Senate race in New Jersey since 1972, so I expect both to be on board for a Filibuster.

Evan Bayh has to appeal to the left wing for ’08, so I expect him to vote no on Alito but for Cloture.

Kent Conrad, facing re-election in North Dakota HAS to vote Yea. I think Byron Dorgan could probably get away with voting Nay, but will also vote Yea.

I think with Byrd facing re-election, Rockefeller will probably vote Yea so that Byrd’s people can take credit for not only Byrd’s vote but Rockefeller’s.

As for Landrieu, I found out Courtesy of Howard Empowered People that Landrieu is solidly against a filibuster. I think she’ll probably vote Yea as well.

In his first term, I feel Mark Pryor is going to vote Yea.

I also would expect Gang of 14 members Ken Salazar and Joe Lieberman to join the other gang of 14ers (Johnson, Nelson (NE), Pryor, Byrd, and Landrieu) in voting for Cloture, even as they vote “Nay” on the nomination. The reason for this being is that if Salazar and Liberman vote Nay, the Gang of 14 is dead, if two members vote for a filibuster of a nominee that 12 of 14 don’t consider an “extreme circumstance.” Why compromise a powerful working relationship for John Kerry’s publicity stunt.

So with the Democrats, Minimum we’re looking at: 3 Yeas, 8 Votes for Cloture
Actual Prediction: 5 Yeas, 9 Votes for Cloture

Minimum Prediction: 57 Yeas, 43 Nays on Confirmation, 66 Yeas, 34 Nays on Cloture
Actual Prediction: 62 Yeas, 38 Nays on Confirmation, 67 Yeas, 33 Nays on Cloture.

Samuel Alito

Take for example, the John McCain and the Campaign Finance Reformers told us that there was too much money in politics, and this was the reason behind the McCain-Feingold legislation. However, what they did not eliminate was the NEED for money.

There are two reforms that I believe are vital to making sure Congress works better.

You Get What You Pay For

Congressmen earn $162,100 per year which is a jaw-dropping figure for most Americans. Indeed many self-styled government reformers propose Congressional Pay as a good cash cow to slay. As good as it might feel to stick it to Congress, even if you made the Congressman position itself a volunteer position, it would save a mere $87.6 million in Salary, which would do nothing about our debt or deficit.

While $162,100 may be a great salary for most of us, it’s a job many people can’t afford to take, particularly with Congress’ ethical restrictions on outside income. Consider a successful Lawyer or an Executive whose bringing home hundreds of thousands a year. In running for Congress, they must stop earning money for the time they’re running they’re campaign, and once elected they’ll have their income cut while having to maintain a 2nd residence (be that an apartment or a home in the DC area.)

You want better Congressman, up the pay to Half a Million per year. In doing so, you’ll get more people who are able to run AND you’ll also end one source of special interest corruption. Many members of Congress after they retire become lobbyists. As lobbyists, they earn more than they could ever hope to as Congressmen. Of course, they’ve got to be friendly to industry while in office, if they want a shot at the job. By raising Congressional Salary, K Street will become less attractive.

Also, I think Congress needs incentive pay, just like the CEOs of big corporations get. If a Congress can balance the budget without using Social Security, I think every member should get a million dollar tax-free bonus. I’d support smaller bonuses to get it down, like give them $50,000 to get it down to $200 billion and $100,000 to get it down to $100 billion. If it lead to real reductions in the deficit or our national debt, it’d be money well-spent.

The issue here is how can the US government attract more quality employees to these Congressional seats. The answer is by paying more and providing incentives for the type of behaviors we want.

Let the Money Flow

As I mentioned before, money is needed in politics like never before. If you want to limit the influence pedaling in Washington, one key thing you can do is scrap our counterproductive campaign finance laws.

Candidates spend hours upon hours hobnobbing with big money people, sending out fundraising letters and trying to scrape together enough $2,000 donations to run a campaign.

This doesn’t eliminate the influence of money in politics, it enhances it, and makes Congressmen the slaves of hundreds of special interests.

What I advocate is eliminating all corporate and labor union contributions, along with PACs and having individuals contribute whatever they want to a campaign, as long as the donation’s fully disclosed.

In doing so, we’ll reduce congressional fundraising time, as well as the power of special interests to control hundreds of congressmen. We’ll also open up the process to candidates who may not be able to get fundraising connections, but can get some start up money from a sympathetic benefactor.

Of course, there may be attempts to buy Congressmen, but with full disclosure, large contributions will be a news item so we’ll know who exactly is financing a candidate.

It may be counterintuitive, but its what will work and that’s what our Country should be focused on.

Linked to Cao’s Blog and Conservative Cat, Basil’s Blog, Don Surber, Jo’s Cafe

Reform

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Avendeg who as his first act on the blog called Michael “an idiot” wrote:

I’m all for choice. You have the choice to send your children to any private school that you want, but you don’t have the choice not to support real public schools just like you don’t have the choice not to support public prisons, roads, police departments, etc.

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